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Deacon nodded.
“No matter what the price might be?”
At least at that, he paused. He leaned forward, setting his forearms on his knees. “I don’t know, honestly. I know that every damned time I think I’m done with her, that I tell myself this is going nowhere good, I’m drawn back in. I can’t say I want to pay a price, but I don’t think I can avoid it.” He let out a soft laugh that held no happiness. “She’s like driving toward a cliff. I know I’m going to go over it, but I can’t take my foot off the gas.”
I snorted softly. “Well, that seems like the most accurate description I’ve ever heard of her. Wouldn’t suggest you repeat it to her, though. I have a feeling Hera wouldn’t take too kindly to it.”
Deacon finally let out a laugh, quiet and not entirely pleased as it was. “That’s for sure. Nice as this conversation has been, I’d better get back to work.”
He started to walk away, not waiting for my response, but I couldn’t quite let it go.Curiosity always got me.
“You took the blame, didn’t you?”
He froze, not turning back toward me. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
Still, I pressed the topic. “When Hera got caught breaking into that filing room, when she got sent to solitary, you took the blame, didn’t you? That’s why you were gone, why you weren’t moving too well afterward, wasn’t it?”
“Seems like a pretty stupid thing to do.” He didn’t deny it but didn’t admit it either.
He didn’t need to, though. It had been my strong guess before, but after seeing him react, he’d solidified it.
“It seemed strange that for such a large infraction, for such a large security risk, she’d get off so easily. Solitary sucks, but they really let it go after that. That never sat right with me. It’s because you took the brunt of the punishment, didn’t you?”
He finally turned back toward me, though his gaze remained on the floor. “It was my fault. I showed her that room—on accident, but still, I did that. I didn’t realize she was going to try anything, didn’t anticipate it like I should have. It was my fault.”
“Just not noticing it wouldn’t have gotten you in that sort of trouble. You told them something else.”
He crossed his arms, making me doubt he’d keep speaking. Amazingly enough, he went on. “I told the Warden I’d brought her in there because she was having a hard time accepting her position here. I lied and said I’d shown her the files as a way to get her to realize she had nowhere else to go, that no one left this place. I said I hadn’t expected her to steal anything, so I’d left her there to think about it. Then they wouldn’t look too hard at how she’d gotten in.”
“And you took the punishment in her place. That’s a lot more noble than I’d have expected from you.”
Deacon pointed a finger at me, his gaze lifting to mine. “Not a word to Hera—we clear?”
I lifted my hands as if frightened by his obvious threat. “My lips are sealed. Last thing I want is to either endear you to her any more or make her suffer when she feels guilty about it. Still, seems you were right. She really is a cliff for you, isn’t she?”
Deacon nodded but paused before turning away again. “She is. I’m pretty sure I’m going to barrel right over the side of it, but fuck, what sort of masochist am I that I’m sort of looking forward to it? Change is change, and maybe that sort of change is worth the impact.”
With that, he turned, leaving me there in the room with only his words left.
No matter what happened with Larkwood, with the escape, with any of it, one thing was damned clear.
For better or worse, Hera had changed all our lives, and there was no going back.
* * * *
Hera
I couldn’t believe it, but Kit’s little trick seemed to work. A nurse had injected drugs into the crook of my elbow, but whereas the last time it had quickly worked through my system and stolen my thoughts and memory, this time it didn’t.
Well, I couldn’t say it did nothing.
My thoughts weren’t as sharp, the world was a bit fuzzy, but it wasn’t anywhere near what it had been before. It seemed more like the nice buzz that happened from a girly drink or two, compared to downing shot after shot of whiskey until a person blacked out.
Kit’s command had helped, making the pain not go away but at least become a lesser issue. I knew the tests hurt, but my brain didn’t react or process it as pain.
I hadn’t understood why that had been necessary, but now I did. When they’d taken another small biopsy from my shoulder blade, the sharp circular bladepunching into my skin, the tug as it pulled the sample away, there was no way I could have pretended not to react if I’d felt it all.
“Her numbers are still high,” the doctor mumbled. He tended to speak to himself when no one else was around—or even when others were around sometimes. He seemed more interested in his own opinions rather than actually discussing anything with anyone else.
